Reproducing old machines with newer technology

[Jay Jaeger]

Almost sounds like the CPU was kind of an "attached processor" - similar
to the way vector processors have been implemented by IBM and others.

On 7/14/2015 5:28 PM, Chuck Guzis wrote:
> On 07/14/2015 02:53 PM, William Donzelli wrote:
>>> Again, you're missing the point.
>>
>> This was a fairly specific CDC Cyber thing - not a widely adopted idea
>> in the industry, as was originally asked for.
>>
>> The channel controller/director idea, on the other hand, was very
>> widely adopted.
> 
> That's true--but at the time, CDC's design made a huge amount of sense.
>  The CPU was left to do what it did best--crunch numbers without the
> burden of managing the I/O activity and responding to interrupts.  In
> that sense, the CPU was treated as more of a peripheral device.  In
> fact, you could order a CPU-less system. (6416?)
> 
> You can still see the general scheme implemented today on the Parallax
> Probeller MPU, which, some, I'm sure will tell you, is a pretty nifty
> design.
> 
> --Chuck
> 
> 
>